BIGNY Trip Photos -- May 2016

Thanks to the 27 book professionals who attended the BIGNY familiarization trip to Gladfelter and Maple Press in Pennsylvania. Here are some photos from the overnight trip:

BIGNY "Groundbreaking Women: The Second Wave": More About Janet McCarthy Grimm

Here's a brief professional biography of Janet McCarthy Grimm, one of the three panelists who will join the Book Industry Guild of New York's (BIGNY) April 12, 2016 panel discussion "Groundbreaking Women: The Second Wave."

Ms. Grimm, a Lindenmeyr Book Publishing Papers vice president, began her career in the production department of Houghton Mifflin Publishing Company in Boston. She also worked at Courier Corporation in Lowell, MA, as a buyer for the Directories and Forms Division. Janet joined Lindenmeyr in its New York office as a sales representative in 1984. She became Marketing Manager in 1987 and was promoted to her current position as Vice President in 1989. Ms. Grimm is a past president of the Bookbinders' Guild of New York, and has served the graphic arts industry through the Book Manufacturers' Institute, Women in Production, and The Paper Club of New York. She now serves on the Boards of Directors of the Book Industry Guild of New York (BIGNY), Poets and Writers, and the Book Industry Study Group. She is also a member of the Book Industry Environmental Council and will talk about paper to anyone who will listen! 

BIGNYDigital -- More About Peter Milburn

Peter Milburn

Here's a brief bio of Peter Millburn, one of the panelists at the Book Industry Guild of New York's (BIGNY) March 8th panel discussion on "Publishing Technology Update: New Digital Directions":

Peter Milburn is Associate Director, Digital Product Marketing at John Wiley & Sons, Inc. where he oversees marketing for Wiley Efficient Learning, Wiley’s online test prep unit. In five years at Wiley, Peter helped build EfficientLearning.com into a key source of growth for the company in the area of global direct-sold digital learning. Prior to joining Wiley, Peter was founder and owner of RE:DIRECT, a direct response creative agency that handled promotion and interactive assignments for most of the country's major magazine publishers including Condé Nast, Hearst, Time Inc. and others. Peter began his career at Time Inc.'s Consumer Marketing Division in 1994, spending six years involved in acquisition and retention marketing for its stable of mass-market consumer magazines. He is a past member of the board of the Direct Marketing Club of New York.

Transition to Digital: A Brief BIGNY Dialogue with Wiley's Peter Milburn

Peter Milburn

The Book Industry Guild of New York (BIGNY) recently spoke with Wiley's Peter Milburn about his firm's transition to the digital marketplace. In his role as Associate Director, Digital Product Marketing, Knowledge & Learning/Wiley, Milburn possesses a sharp, experienced perspective on the challenges and rewards digital opportunities offer.

The following three questions provide a window into insights Milburn will share during BIGNY's Tuesday, March 8th "Publishing Technology Update: New Digital Directions" panel discussion.

BIGNY: Can you give some examples of re-purposing content in order to monetize it?
Milburn: In Test Prep, we licensed spiral bound "Focus Notes" book content to mobile app company gWhiz. Also, we put our books into online courseware, as well as ebook formats.

BIGNY: How has data from your digital products affected new book or product creation?
Milburn: We constantly run customer surveys to understand what they like or dislike about our products. We adjust based on the feedback. For example, print replica printing was important to our customers, so we worked with Vitalsource to add two files of each book to their account: a print replica ePDF version and a reflowable ePub version.

BIGNY: How has the digital workflow changed people's jobs? For example, do designers have to code? Do teams work more closely?
Milburn: Everyone needs increased awareness of the workflows and end-customer impacts. So, for example, editors need to understand the full content ecosystem to help backout author delivery dates, the dev teams need to be able to react quickly to market feedback, sales people need to become software solution specialists.

Learn more about publishing technology's new digital directions from Milburn and other industry experts during BIGNY's March 8th event. For event information and advance ticket purchase, please visit the BIGNY site for details. And click here for a brief professional bio of Peter Milburn.

Lee & Low Book Publishing Industry Diversity Report

The well-regarded independent publisher Lee & Low Books released its most recent survey exploring diversity in the book publishing biz. We're linking the story Publishing Perspective's Porter Anderson wrote about the survey and its results. It's a "must-read" for anyone concerned with this issue.

Here's the link to Anderson's story: http://bit.ly/1TDLOJB

BISG's New YA Subject Headings

Erin L. Cox at Publishing Perspectives posted an article discussing BISG's new YA subject headings' implementation. For book publishers and distributors, BISG headings are very significant for discoverability and data management, regardless of print/digital format. Their impact extends into nearly every aspect of publishing, and matters to those who foster "author brands."

You don't need skin in the YA publishing game to care about BISG. However, for those new to the business, take a few minutes to get acquainted with BISG. If you're familiar with the organization and its goals, pass the link on to your colleagues for whom this information would be valuable.

Of course, you can always ask us at BIGNY, via EM or during one of BIGNY's events.